1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a coin dispensing apparatus for use in coin exchangers, coin operated gaming machines or the like and more particularly to such a coin dispensing apparatus comprising a hopper for holding a supply of coins or tokens in bulk and a rotary disc for dispensing coins one at a time and in predetermined quantities.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Hitherto, such a coin dispensing apparatus is known as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 62-45,588 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,589,433). As shown in FIG. 10, such a known coin dispensing apparatus comprises a hopper for holding a supply of coins in bulk and a rotary disc 3 rotatably disposed at one side within the hopper 1 at an angle to the horizontal. The rotary disc 3 has a central circular stage 4 provided at the central portion thereof and a plurality of coin transporting pins 5 arranged in a peripheral portion 3a around the central circular stage 4 such as to receive one coin between two sequential transporting pins 5, 5 spaced apart in the peripheral direction of the rotary disc 3. The coin dispensing apparatus further comprises a delivery guide 7 and an outlet chute 6 which are fixed to a stationary frame at an upper delivery portion 3b. The delivery guide 7 extends from the outlet chute 8 to an upper periphery 4a of the central stage across the peripheral portion 3a of the rotary disc 3 in the upper delivery portion 3b and has a tunnel passage for passing the transporting pin 5. Thus, when the rotary disc is rotated, a coin is transported from the bottom portion of the hopper 1 to the outlet chute 6 at the upper delivery portion 3b by each of the transporting pins 5 which project from the surface of the rotary disc 3 and pass through the tunnel passage in the delivery guide 7.
Aforementioned coin dispensing apparatus of prior art has a disadvantage in that the size of the coin transporting pin is limited since a large transporting pin can carry two or more coins at a time so that a coin counting device usually provided at the front of the outlet chute would make a miscount or the inlet of the outlet chute would be jammed with coins and further the dimension of the tunnel passage in the delivery guide must be increased. On the other hand, in order to improve the function of picking up a coin from a gutter formed at a lower portion of the hopper, it is desirable to make the length of the coin transporting pin sufficiently large to efficiently pickup the coin from the gutter.
In order to improve coin dispensing efficiency it is also desired to make the length of the coin agitating members protruded from the surface of the central stage of the rotary disc as long as possible and/or to locate on the central stage away from the center axis of the rotary disc in the radial direction, but the coin agitating members are also limited owing to the same reasons as for the coin transporting pin.